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The Bet
Edward Muybridge bet $25k with his pals that while a horse is running, it has all four hooves off the ground at some point. His buddies truly didn't believe him so they took about 12 pictures of a horse while it was running. Turns out Edward was right and now we have the very first motion picture film. -
The Kinetoscope
In 1894 the very first Kinetoscope parlor opened. A Kinetoscope parlor was a place where one could go to see the moving pictures in the kinetoscopes. It was Thomas Edison and William Dickson who invented the Kinetoscope. The Kinetoscope had one peephole so that only one person could watch at a time and Edison got very rich off of this. -
The Lumiere Brothers
The Lumiere brothers in France were the first ones who did what Thomas Edison didn't want to do and project the motion pictures to an audience which they called Cinematographe. It was in 1985 that they started showing these short 30-60 second films at movie theaters. These films were usually of things like a man falling off a horse and a child trying to catch a fish in a fishbowl. -
Nickelodeons
during the 1900s there were many small theaters that featured comedy routines, dramatic skits, and song and dance routines. These were called vaudeville and in order to fill the time between acts and get a one-up on the competition, they started using short films. Later on, they started calling these films Nickelodeons because you had to pay one nickel to see them. This is also where the kids' channel, Nickelodeon got its name from. -
The Great Train Robbery
In 1903, Edwin Porter, an employee of Thomas Edison, created the very first U.S. Narrative film. This film was The Great Train Robbery; it lasted 12 minutes and had 14 scenes. The Great Train Robbery introduced different camera angles and positions and had an actual storyline. -
Coast to Coast
Films originally were shot on the East Coast of the U.S, although there are two main reasons why that changed. At the time, many films were, shot outside, and the technology wasn't like how it is now, so a lot of, light, was recommended. The East coast sky seems very overcast and they say it never rains in southern California. The West coast was also much farther away from Thomas Edison and the MPPC (later on), so they would have less of a chance of getting caught. -
Edison's Monopoly
By this time, over 26 million people were seeing nickelodeons in theaters. About five years later, these numbers more than doubled, and the popularity made people want a part of all that money. Because of this, Thomas Edison and many others decided to create the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), which controlled nearly everything in the motion picture industry and went after independent studios. However, the MPPC did create an internationally competitive industry and mark film standards. -
First Film Stars
The MPPC didn't want to disclose the actor's/actresses' names to the public because they thought that if they did, the individual would get rich instead of them. However, an independent studio on the West Coast thought differently. They knew that showing their names would make the viewers want to come to see movies solely because that star was in them, and they were right! The first movie stars were Mary Pickford, or "America's Sweetheart," and Charlie Chaplin, the silent comedy genius. -
Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin was one of the first movie stars in the 20th century. He created what was known as silent comedy, which was just that! At first, he only worked $150 per week, but by 1917 he was making more than a million a year! Chaplin didn't only have nonsense humor but also created jokes that tested morals through good and evil in what was today's society.